Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While any increase in funding is welcome and almost none of the increase over the past three years has been spent, funding is still far below what is required. Back in 2008, the Traveller accommodation budget was in the region of €40 million and it is nowhere close to that now. To meet the level of need in terms of new units and refurbishment and new household formation, we are going to have to get back to a budget close to where we were in 2008. If we cannot spend €12 million or €13 million and we need to increase the budget, that will be a challenge. In all of that monitoring, there must be included some more robust way of tracking what has been spent, what the delays are and so on. From everything I am hearing, that is part of the plan. We must also identify where additional capacity is. Going by the figures, a local authority could have a 100% spend but that is based on what it requested and it could request a fraction of what is required. That is why those needs assessments are so important. We could then see if the request was proportionate to the need.

I appreciate that there is work involved in getting any reform to Part 8, section 183 and the regulator right. It is not as simple as saying we will implement the recommendation; I get that. My worry is that it might take too long to get that in place. Bar the few local authorities that have yet to approve the TAPs everyone else has done so. One would like to think that this new regime will come in as early as possible in the lifetime of those programmes. I am pretty clear on the Part 8 proposition, which is that we still have a formal Part 8 process, we still have public consultation and elected members are still consulted, but the final Part 8 decision is the manager's. I am likewise clear on section 183. If we have an AHB and the land has to transferred, it is a similar process. I am a little bit more concerned about whether the regulator will have sufficient force on foot of a complaint from the NTACC or authority to intervene and to force or request that the Minister force a manager to act where he or she is not acting in line with the TAP. That is the key. Without telling us what the decision is, because I appreciate he is working through it, can the Minister of State give us more information about how that could work in practice, in terms of his understanding of the regulator as it is currently working? Has he been discussing the matter with the regulator? We do not want to make what are pretty difficult legislative changes, albeit for the right reasons, and then be scratching our heads in a year because although the regulator can take a complaint and make a report to a Minister, it cannot take further actions. We were not fully cognisant of this when we were dealing with the planning regulator in legislation. I would just like to tease that out a little.

To elaborate on the suggestion I was making, and I might come back to the Minister of State in writing, provision should be made for an early opt-out or exit as an incentive to local authorities. Councillors lose the Part 8 and section 183 powers. It is a three-year period but I suggest some mechanism for a local authority to apply to exit after year one under certain conditions or in certain ways, if it is able to convince the Department. That is then tracked and if the local authority does not do it, it reverts. That might be a way. Deputy Casey and I had an exchange at the previous meeting and I completely understand where he is coming from but if we try to incentivise good behaviour without facilitating bad behaviour, we might end up with a compromise with which even those who are not yet over the line on this might be able to live, come the legislative changes. I might think more about that and come back to the Minister of State with a formal note.